Boardash: Many teens resign themselves to bullying

Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Many teens resign themselves to bullying

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Tuesday November 3, 2009

Millions of U.S. kids vitamin D deficient
Less diabetes risk if moms ate vegetables
Many teens resign themselves to bullying
Advice from Carolyn Hax
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Millions of U.S. kids vitamin D deficient

BOSTON (UPI) -- Millions of U.S. children under age 11 -- particularly African-American and Hispanic children -- may get too little vitamin D, researchers found.

Study leader Dr. Jonathan Mansbach of Children's Hospital Boston, and colleagues of the University of Colorado Denver and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, used data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to look at vitamin D levels in a nationally representative sample of some 5,000 children from 2001-2006.

In a study scheduled to be published in the journal Pediatrics, the researchers said extrapolating to the entire U.S. population suggests roughly 20 percent of all children fall below the recommended 50 nanomoles per liter. Moreover, more than two-thirds of all children have levels below 75 nmol/L, including 80 percent of Hispanic children and 92 percent of non-Hispanic black children.

"If 75 nmol/L or higher is eventually demonstrated to be the healthy normal level of vitamin D, then there is much more vitamin D deficiency in the U.S. than people realize," Mansbach said in a statement.

The researchers suggested all children take vitamin D supplements because of the generally low levels they found and the potential health benefits of boosting vitamin D to normal levels.

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Less diabetes risk if moms ate vegetables

GOTHENBURG, Sweden (UPI) -- Expectant mothers in Sweden who ate vegetables daily had children less likely to develop type 1 diabetes, researchers found.

Researchers at the Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg and Linkoping University in Sweden found of 6,000 children given blood tests, 3 percent had either elevated levels of antibodies that attack insulin-producing cells or fully developed type 1 diabetes at the age of 5.

The study, published in Pediatric Diabetes, found the diabetes risk markers were up to twice as common in children whose mothers rarely ate vegetables during pregnancy.

"This is the first study to show a link between vegetable intake during pregnancy and the risk of the child subsequently developing type 1 diabetes, but more studies of various kinds will be needed before we can say anything definitive," corresponding author Hilde Brekke of Sahlgrenska Academy at the University of Gothenburg said in a statement.

Brekke said it cannot be said that it's the vegetables themselves that have this protective effect, but other factors related to vegetable intake, such as the mother's standard of education, did not seem to explain the link, Brekke said.

"Nor can this protection be explained by other measured dietary factors or other known risk factors," Brekke added.

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Many teens resign themselves to bullying

GRANADA, Spain (UPI) -- Many adolescents have a "a negative, pessimistic and resigned attitude" toward bullying at school, researchers in Spain said.

Jesus Caurcel Cara, Fernando Justicia of the University of Granada in Spain, Ana Tomas Almeida of the Universidade do Minho in Portugal and colleagues, conducted a survey of 1,237 children ages 11-16 from Granada, Spain, and Braga, Portugal, to measure their perception of bullying.

The researchers said 7.3 percent of the students were victims, 8.5 percent were abusers and 84.1 percent of the children were an audience.

"Bullying is getting more and more integrated in the daily routine of interaction among groups of peers, is considered as something natural and has certain social approval," the researchers said.

Schoolchildren approve abusers' behavior and leave victims isolated and unprotected, the study found.

Children revealed in answering questionnaires the bullies characterized their victims as passive, socially incompetent, people who experience unpleasant emotional states of anxiety, depression and insecurity. The abuser is characterized as a strong, brave and extroverted person who experiences pleasant emotional states, feels power and self-confidence, reinforces status in the group and inhibit social motivations to end the abuses.

The findings are published in the Electronical Journal of Research in Educational Psychology, Revista de Educacion de la Universidad de Granada and the European Journal of Education and Psychology.

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Advice from Carolyn Hax

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